In a victory for some 7,000 Pennsylvania state prison inmates, a federal judge this week ordered that Mumia Abu-Jamal — the activist and radio journalist serving a life sentence at a state prison in Frackville — should be treated for his hepatitis C infection.

Hepatitis C is pervasive in prisons; in Pennsylvania, about 14 percent of the state’s prisoner population is infected with it. But the only cures are produced by Gilead Sciences Inc., AbbVie Inc., and Merck & Co., which charge as much as $94,500 for complete treatment. In a remarkable opinion by Middle District Judge Robert D. Mariani, the judge was unmoved by the cost, which could rise to as much as $600 million if every one of Pennsylvania’s infected state prisoners receives treatment. “The only conceivable injury [the Pa. Department of Corrections] will suffer is monetary,” the judge wrote.

“As a result of the grant of this injunction,” he continued, “Defendants will be required to treat Plaintiff with expensive medication. While the Court is sensitive to the realities of budgetary constraints and the difficult decisions prison officials must make, the economics of providing this medication cannot outweigh the Eighth Amendment’s constitutional guarantee of adequate medical care.”

“Ernesto Galarza went to court twice and won. He stood trial on a drug conspiracy charge and a Lehigh County jury found him not guilty. The New Jersey native sued the officials who improperly held him as an illegal immigrant after his arrest and changed the way local law enforcement agencies work with federal immigration authorities. But more than eight years after he was arrested at an Allentown construction site where police suspected his boss was selling drugs, the experience is still dragging him down.” Read more about Galarza’s 2010 ACLU case here.

From NBC News: “To End Decades on Death Row, [A Pennsylvania] Inmate Makes an Agonizing Choice”

“‘James Dennis entered a no-contest plea, not a guilty plea, because he maintains the same position that he has maintained for 25 years: that he is innocent of this crime,’ one of his lawyers, Karl Schwartz, told the judge. ‘He and his family have made this incredibly difficult decision based on his and their strong desire to have him home and free, [in] lieu of potentially years of continuing litigation.’ The no-contest plea is not uncommon in claims of wrongful conviction. It allows prosecutors to keep a conviction without a new trial. The defendant, meanwhile, acknowledges there may be enough evidence for another guilty verdict but can still claim innocence.”

“Defendants inaccurately classed as ‘high risk’’ and deemed more likely to be arrested in the future may be treated more harshly than is just or necessary, said Alexandra Chouldechova, Assistant Professor of Statistics & Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, who also studied ProPublica’s COMPAS findings. Chouldechova said focusing on outcomes might be a better definition of fairness. To create equal outcomes, she said, ‘You would have to treat people differently.’ Chouldechova’s paper, ‘Fair prediction with disparate impact: A study of bias in recidivism prediction instruments,’ was posted online in October. Chouldechova is continuing to research ways to improve the likelihood of equal outcomes.”

From The Wall Street Journal: “Why Some Problem Cops Don’t Lose Their Badges: [An] examination shows how states allow some police officers to remain on the force despite misconduct”

“Pennsylvania has reported no officer decertifications since 2012 and just 31 in the past 12 years, according to data the state provided to the Journal. Cpl. Adam Reed, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania agency in charge of decertification, said the state’s law is ‘very specific’ as to when an officer can be decertified and the agency ‘does not act as an “internal affairs.”’

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